combatting the long distance blues

[claire2]

Hi,
My Master lives with his girlfriend about 70 miles south of me. I visit him overnight, one night a week, every week, plus a weekend every month or so. For a long distance relationship I feel pretty lucky with that frequency!

For lots of reasons I don't want to move down there and live with him, nor he move up and live with me, the biggest reason being I have minor children and I don't want to do any kind of blended family kind of thing while they're still in the home and neither do my Master or his girlfriend. It's enough that my kids know in a superficial way that I have a "friend" in a neighboring state. In five years my youngest will be 18. At that time, if things are still the same, we will reevaluate our situations and if all things are still good I'll move down and live with him.

I'm thankful for the way things are. Do you hear the "but" coming? But...I still get so that I miss him so! And feel so envious of his girlfriend who gets to be with him every day! I don't begrudge them their love, I just wish I was there to share in it.
Sometimes I wonder if my heart will be able to take it for that long. And other times it seems like we just met and the last 17 months have flown by and so will the next few years.

So I'm looking for tips or stories of people who have been in long distance relationships and how they coped with these feelings.

Thanks!

claire

 

[KC43]

Guy and I have a long distance relationship. He's about 900 miles away, and I've only seen him once in the past year. Though I get to go visit again in a few weeks.

We talk on the phone at least a few times a week. During times when he's home with his son, he can't usually call me, so he'll at least send me a Facebook message or text to let me know he's thinking about me. (He's on the road for work about 10 months out of the year but goes "home" for a few days once every six weeks or so. When he's "home" he stays with his ex-wife because he's paying for her housing and can't afford his own, and also because their son is autistic.)

Recently, he met someone on OKCupid whom he's gotten together with a few times. I wasn't jealous, but damn was I envious! I didn't have a problem with him having someone to play with; I just wished it was me. Over the past weekend, I had a date with a guy I'd just met, and when I talked to Guy yesterday about it, he said he understood how I felt when he told me he was seeing the other woman. He and I have a disclosure agreement; each time we have a date with someone else, whether it's someone we've seen before or not, we tell each other. Partly because we feel that's what works best for us, partly because we like to cheer each other on. lol

My situation is different from yours, though. I live with Hubby, so being apart from Guy isn't quite as unbearable as it might be if I were alone. And unfortunately, there's very little chance of Guy ever living near me, given his job situation and the fact that he doesn't want to live somewhere far from his kids during the time when he isn't on the road. Though he, Hubby, and I have talked about it a bit, maybe having him move in (during his off-road time) with us after my 16-year-old goes off to college. It's mostly a daydream at this point, but you never know what might happen in two years...

 

[claire2]

Wow, 900 miles!
It's good that you have your husband with you for day to day.

My Master has suggested that I could find someone that is closer to home to fill in the blanks but I have no desire to do that. He's the poly, not me.

Thanks for your post, KC43!

 

[KC43]

"Day to day" being a relative term; because of Hubby's summer work schedule, we sometimes go 2-3 days without actually seeing each other awake.

Guy doesn't identify as poly either, though as my signature says, he isn't much for labels anyway. He's said a number of times that he doesn't have a problem looking for sex and/or friendship with others, but has no desire to have an actual relationship with anyone other than me. And he makes that clear to anyone he hooks up with as well.